In my case, I believe the earlier suggestion:

open(TAR,"tar -czpf $target_file $logs/access_log.[0-9]*.gz |");
[download]

will do the trick.

While it will probably do the trick, be aware that it is not equivalent. It will also match, e.g. "access_log.20dontsave.gz".

A glob of access_log.[0-9]*.gz is equivalent to a regex of /^access_log\.\d.*\.gz$/